The Stunt Woman
by stareyed in LA
Summary: How did a stunt woman from Australia find herself in the middle of a zombie-infested Georgia? For Josie Granger, it began with an exciting job opportunity that went straight to Hell when the zombies arrived. *Prequel to "Georgia Rose" by InlovewithNicholas. Rated T for language and alcohol use*.
1. Home

_Perth, Australia_

_Three months before Infection_

Saturday morning began like any other weekend day at Casa de la Granger. With a hangover. It was almost ten in the morning and though the curtains were shut, it didn't stop the bits of sunlight from streaming through the cracks and casting long beams of light over the furnishings inside the modest studio apartment and its lone occupant.

Josephine Amelia Granger, best known as Josie to family and friends, was lying on her stomach on a day bed, fast asleep. The blankets were kicked off the bed and lying in a heap on the floor, leaving her to hug the only pillow on the bed. Lying on the floor next to the bed was another young woman, who was curled up under an old afghan, muttering something under her breath as she slept.

At precisely ten o'clock A.M, Josie's mobile phone, which was partially hidden among a clutter of magazines, old newspapers, and beer bottles on the coffee table, lit up and started to ring. Josie perked her head from the couch as soon as she recognized the ring tone, a snippet of "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse, coming from her mobile and reached over to answer it. Meanwhile, her friend rolled over to her other side and continued sleeping.

"Hello," she said into the receiver. She tried her best not to voice her discomfort. Her brain was pounding against her skull, as if it was too big for her head. With one hand cradling the phone against her lower jaw and the other on her head, she continued her conversation, "who is this?"

"What, you don't recognize your own mother," an older woman's voice asked on the other side.

"Oh, Jesus. I'm so sorry, Mum. Didn't realize that was you," Josie hastily apologized as she stumbled over her words. God she hated her stammer. "Anyway, how are you?"

"I'm doing alright," Mrs. Granger continued, "I'm just calling to remind you that we're having a party tonight. I assume you will be attending. It is for you after all."

"'Course I will," Josie said. The sooner this conversation was over the better. Public speaking was torture for Josie. It felt like every conversation she had taken years because of her stammer. "Starts at four o'clock today. Where is it again?"

"Our house," Mrs. Granger continued, "which brings me to my next point. Charlie called me this morning to say his car broke down. Is there any chance you can drive him to the party and back? He wants to come so badly. And you know how much he loves you."

"Yeah, Mum, I do," she said. "I'll drive Charlie. No probs." She already made plans with him. They were going to hang out, grab some lunch, maybe see a movie. Charlie's been dying to see that new Sylvester Stallone movie for months.

"Wonderful. And Josie?"

"Yeah?"

"You're father's getting a couple of kegs. Promise me you won't get drunk again. I don't want a repeat of that Christmas barbeque. Mr. Tanner is still angry over those phone calls he kept receiving."

"I won't get drunk, Mum. Promise. See you tonight." Josie ended the call and slammed her phone shut. "And not my fault Mr. Tanner has the same phone number as Cecelia," she finished.

With shaking legs, Josie got up from the day bed and stumbled. Her knee made contact with the sharp edge of the coffee table, causing her to gasp in pain, and then curse. By now, her headache had progressed from a dull pounding to having sharp bolts of pain radiate from her skull to the rest of her body. The young woman on the floor woke up and perked her head to see what was all the commotion.

"What time is it," the woman asked. She sat up and ran one hand through her tangled, copper coloured mane of hair while the other hand rested on the surface of the coffee table. Josie walked over to the tiny kitchenette and put a kettle of water to boil.

"Ten eleven," Josie answered, glancing up at the clock hanging near the front door. It was one of those kitsch cat clocks with the eyes and tail that moved back and forth, but this one was given a glitzy makeover. For some reason, the designer decided that the clock needed rhinestones. Lots and lots of rhinestones. Hence why the cat now had rhinestone studded eyes, tail, bow tie, and grin. Personally, Josie found the clock a little too girly for her taste. She only bothered to hang it up was because it was a housewarming gift from her sister Ellie, the girly girl to her tomboy. It was only polite.

"Crap, I've got work in an hour," the woman said. She looked down at the glittery pink mini dress and sky-high black high heels she had on. "Uh, can't go to work looking like this. Jo, can you can make my tea to go?"

"Whatever you say, Cece," Josie replied. She dug through an overhead cabinet and took out a mug, a thermos, and a box of breakfast tea. As she waited for the water to boil, Cecelia got up from the floor and stumbled to the bathroom. She emerged minutes later wiping her face off with a damp wash cloth. Once she got the smeared make up off, Cecelia looked rather beautiful with her porcelain white skin, large green eyes, and long red hair. She could even be a model. Her English Rose looks served as a sharp contrast to Josie's rugged appearance.

Josie Granger was a girl of all angles and no curves. She had long, lean limbs, a muscular body burned into a tan thanks to her many, many hours spent outdoors and a face to match. Her nose, chin, and dark brown eyes were sharp like a hawk's face. Her hair, a nice shade of honey blonde, was shorn into a pixie cut, left over from Josie's last job doubling for the star of kid's show about a skateboarding spy that she decided to keep after the show ended its four season run. There was hardly anything that suggested she was a female save for her bust (an A-cup) and her full lips.

"Do you remember what we did last night," Cecelia asked. "'Cause I'm totally blanking. Think I drank too much."

The kettle began to steam and hiss. Josie immediately took it off the stove and filled the waiting mug and thermos with boiling water before returning the kettle to the stove top. As they waited for their tea to steep, the two friends continued talking.

"Well if memory serves me right," Josie began, "we went to the Lagoon club for Disco Friday last night, like we always do. And while we were at the bar, we were sitting next to these two guys. Young, probably out of college. Think they were American or Canadian. They didn't accents. And they were being really obnoxiously drunk and one of them was making cracks at us. Lesbian jokes, the like."

"But we aren't gay," Cecelia said. She took her thermos and took a sip out of it.

"Still didn't stop them," Josie said with a shrug. "Oh, and I got drunk and challenged them to a boat race."

"That I can remember," Cecelia said. "Who won?"

"Who knows," Josie said. "I can't remember a thing after that. Only getting mad at the two foreign guys and getting booted out of the Lagoon. Then we went back here. And that's where things go blank for me."

Cecelia was now digging through her purse and searching for her mobile as Josie sat up on the kitchen counter, her mug clasped between her hands. "We're bound to find out though," Cecelia said. "I'm friends with Baz, the bartender, on Facebook. I'll just send him a message and ask what happened. Or there's probably a crapton of pics from last night already up online. God, I hope my boss doesn't see them."

"Fat chance," Josie said, "you're friends with just about everybody in Perth."

"Not everybody," Cecelia shot back. She dropped her phone on the counter and let out a hiss in pain. She gripped her hair with one hand. "On second thought, I think I should call in sick. Don't think its a good idea to show up hung over at Carousel."

"Whatever you say," Josie said as she took a sip. Cecelia dialed the number of her work, a high-end boutique in a ritzy part of Perth, and left a message saying she was ill and wouldn't make it to work today. When she hung up, Cecelia turned to her friend and said, "you're lucky. You don't get to work weekends."

This part was true. Josie Granger worked in an unusual career. She was a stunt double. It had started ever since she was eighteen, when Josie left home and moved to Sydney to pursue a career as a police officer. She had dreamed of living a life of danger and intrigue and thought becoming a cop would fulfill that wish. As it turned out, the tuition at the police academy was expensive and Josie found herself perusing through the want ads for part-time job. The first paying job Josie was hired for was as an extra for an action movie being filmed in downtown Sydney. On her second day on the job, and bored with waiting for the director to roll the cameras and begin filming, she brought her skateboard to the set and was showing off a new trick she had learned to a couple of fellow extras she had befriended. After demonstrating how to do a heel flip, an assistant came up to her and requested that she see the director.

At first, Josie thought she was going to be fired. Just as she was about to explain that she didn't know bringing a skateboard was against the rules, the director asked if she wanted a promotion. As it turned out, between takes, the director had watched Josie performing her skateboarding tricks. He was amazed with her athletic abilities and wanted her to become a stunt double for one of the film's leads!

One could say that the rest is history.

Josie smiled at the memory. If it hadn't been for her skating tricks and one director's attention, she wouldn't be a stunt double, enjoying a Saturday morning off with her best friend. She would probably still become a cop. A cop who was deeply in debt.

That isn't to say being a stunt double was the greatest job in the world. It had its cons. Josie found herself away from her family and friends for months to a time. She always had to keep up peak physical condition to do the death-defying stunts that the actors and actresses were not allowed to attempt for insurance reasons. She's had to deal with tyrannical dictators and prima donna leading ladies. If she broke a bone (and it has happened several times before) she would be out of work for months. And there have been times where work was scarce and Josie found herself jobless for periods of up to six months.

She turned to Cecelia and smiled. "At least your job is more stable than mine."

Cecelia shot back with, "at least you get to travel. Where are you going to again for your next job?"

"Georgia," Josie replied. She had just been cast as a stunt double for a big budget blockbuster about a Martian colony that is under siege by a belligerent alien race. Her first role in a major Hollywood production and she was going to begin working on it in a week. Even if the movie tanked at the box office, this role still provided an opportunities for other directors and casting agents to hire her for their movies. It can only get better from that role, right?

"Lucky," Cecelia muttered. "Anyway, if you excuse me, I gotta go get sobered up before that party your mum's hosting tonight. See you tonight?"

"See you tonight," Josie replied. Cecelia smiled as she left the flat.

At one in the afternoon that same day, Josie was slowly driving down a residential street in her beige 1978 Holden Torana. A local rock station on the radio was playing some one hit wonder from the 90's. As the singer crooned about a woman who was like double cherry pie and disco superfly, she shifted her car into gear and parked at a corner intersection. Satisfied with her handiwork, Josie turned off the radio and the engine and got out of the car before locking it behind her.

The house she was walking up to was like any other on the block. It was a small, two-story bungalow with white siding and dark green trim with a large front porch that shaded by a large bay tree on one side. The front lawn, which was starting to yellow from a lack of water, had overturned lawn chairs and a rugby ball scattered about. Josie shook her head as she walked across the front lawn.

"Typical Charlie," Josie thought as she rang the door bell. Her brother was never one to clean up his messes, something that peeved their mother terribly.

The front door swung open, revealing a young man in his mid twenties. He was tall and slender, with olive skin, curly black hair, and a stubbly beard. He also wasn't dressed for visitors, as shown by the Family Guy print pyjama pants he had on and the lack of a shirt. Josie was not fazed.

"Mornin' Ali, Ch-Charlie home," she asked. Her eyes focused on Ali's face and not on any part of his body.

"I'll go get him," Ali answered, swinging the screen door open and letting Josie inside.

The hallway, though clean, stunk of stale beer, pizza, and fried fish. The living room, however, looked like a war zone. Beer bottles, empty pizza boxes, video game controllers, and other debris littered the floor. The big screen television, which dominated one side of the room, was playing a cartoon. In the middle of the room sat a large hookah made of blue glass and surrounded by a ring of cushions. As she got closer to the hookah, Josie caught the unmistakable whiff of marijuana smoke.

Josie pushed aside some books and papers off of the couch before taking a seat, but not before letting out a gasp of discomfort. She reached down, pulled out a crudely made apple bong, and tossed it aside.

Within minutes, there were footsteps rumbling down the stairs.

"I didn't realize you would be stopping over here," Charlie said from the doorway. He had just turned twenty-three, though his overall appearance suggested that he was still in university, maybe high school. Charlie had fair skin, dark brown eyes, but unlike his blonde sister, he had shaggy brown hair that was long enough to pull back into a pony tail. He was fully dressed in jeans, trainers, and a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a local surf shop as well as a Brisbane Broncos baseball cap jammed on his head. His left arm was in a cast and there was a raw and pink scar forming above his right eye. Both were the result of Charlie diving off of a pier a month and a half ago.

Charlie Granger was a daredevil. From the time he could walk, Charlie tested the limits of his idiocy. By the time he turned twenty-three, he had been in the hospital fifteen times, had broken most of the bones in his body, now had a metal plates screwed over various bones and his skull, and was missing the pinkie and ring finger on his left hand. Some of his finer acts of stupidity included wrestling with a gator, trying to fight a dingo, eating a pound of raw chicken, drinking an entire bottle of 100 proof vodka in one sitting, trying to deep fry a turkey and burning his hands, arms and chest in the process, busting his nuts with a pair of nun-chucks while helping a friend of his make a movie about ninjas, crashing his car into a construction site while trying to reenact a scene from _The Dukes of Hazzard_, and racing a shopping cart down a steep hill because he has seen it on _Jackass_. There were other stories, and if Josie had a knack for writing, she could write a novel about them.

Josie looked up to see her brother. "Well Mum told me you had car troubles. And I figured you needed a ride."

Charlie smiled. "'Course. You make yourself comfortable. I just want to get some coffee before we leave though. Sorry this place is messier than usual. It was Vick's birthday last night and we kinda went crazy with the party."

Vick was Charlie's other housemate. In total, Charlie had five other housemates, including Ali and Vick.

"I see," Josie said. She took a remote in her hands and flipped through the channels before landing on CNN.

"There have been reports of a new type of flu emerging in the United States," the reporter said as she stood in front of a hospital entrance. Mercy Hospital, judging by the sign just behind her. "The CDC has dubbed it the 'Green Flu'. They have recently issued a set of warning tips and methods for preventing infection that is available on their official website. Some of these tips include reporting unusual behaviour, barricading homes, and avoiding all contact with infected individuals. Further instructions courtesy of the CDC and CEDA will be released in the following weeks. This is Chelsea Wong reporting live from Philadelphia. Back to you in the studio."

"Good thing you aren't going to Philly," Charlie said. He emerged from the kitchen carrying two mugs of coffee. He sat down next to Josie and handed one of the mugs to her. "I don't like how this Green Flu sounds."

"Yeah, but Atlanta is still kinda close, isn't it," Josie asked. She took a sip of the coffee and shuddered. It tasted very, very foul, as if someone added gym socks as a secret ingredient to the pot. "And besides, the media's just hyping it up for ratings and all. Remember the media firestorm over Bird Flu? And how that didn't turn into a global pandemic?"

"Yeah." Charlie and Josie sat silently for several moments. Then he remarked, "Don't know why that movie you're doing isn't filming in Hollywood, isn't that where all movies are made? And just, Georgia's really far away from Australia. At least if you're in California, you're just an ocean away from home. In Georgia, it's an ocean and an entire country away from us."

Josie shook her head. "Georgia is becoming a hot spot for filming recently. And if that's where my job takes me, that's where my job takes me. It's no different from any other job that requires someone to travel."

"Whatever," Charlie said as he took a slip, making a sour face in the process. He got up and dumped the coffee in the sink. "You wanna got get pizza or something? Maybe catch a movie? Do some bro-sis bonding time before you run off to America for three months."

Josie smiled. "Whatever keeps me away from mum and Ellie. I don't want to have to deal with their bullshit. You know how much of a nightmare they can get with party planning and making sure every thing is perfect."

* * *

A/N: I just want to my thanks to InlovewithNicholas and Diluted Dolphin. Without "Georgia Rose", I wouldn't have submitted Josie. Without "Fire Bird" I wouldn't get the inspiration to write a prequel focused on her. So thank you so much guys. I really appreciate it.


	2. Party

As she had expected, Mrs. Granger and Ellie went above and beyond to host the best "good luck /going away" party in Perth history. As Josie and Charlie pulled up to the drive way of the Granger's residence, they saw that every curb occupied by blocked cars. They had to park the car two blocks away from where the party was being held at. As they walked down the street to their parents' house, they could someone was playing a saxophone somewhere in the yard, and Josie had an inkling that the musician might be her own father. Mr. Granger, a maths teacher by day and a jazz band musician by night and on weekends, could never resist showing off the latest piece he had composed.

Josie and Charlie walked up to the front door and Charlie rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door swung open, revealing a woman in her mid-fifties. Even though her hair was starting to grey at the temples and there were fine wrinkles beginning to form on her brow and the corners of her mouth and eyes, she was still lovely, a fact not lost on her as shown by the sleeveless, knee-length Hawaiian shift dress that showed off her toned arms and legs.

"Hi Mum," Josie said.

"We're here," Charlie added.

Mrs. Granger smiled and opened the screen door. "Well then come in. Everyone's out back."

The three crossed the house and walked out to the patio. The yard transformed from an average backyard into a Hawaiian luau. Unlit tiki torches were staked around the perimeter of the yard and the old fig tree in one corner had fairy lights and garlands made of silk flowers draped around the branches and trunk. The refreshment table, which had a grass skirt wrapped around it, was loaded with punch and soda, potato chips, teriyaki chicken and ribs, and fruit salad. Guests, many Josie recognized as friends of her parents, neighbors, and people she knew from high school, mingled about through the space. David McCain, Ellie's husband, wearing his "Natural Born Griller" apron over a Hawaiian shirt, manned the grill. Mr. Granger stood off to one side of the yard and entertained guests with a new piece he had composed for the saxophone. Ellie was standing close to David and entertaining a couple of her coworkers while their three-year-old daughter, Sadie, sat on a lawn chair flipping through a picture book.

"So glad you can make it," Ellie exclaimed as she saw Josie lingering by the back door. She turned to her friends and said, "excuse me for a moment."

"Aw Josie, couldn't you have dressed up for this party? Mum and I threw this whole thing for you. You should at least dress like the VIP that you are," Ellie Granger chastised. She and Josie were now standing out on the patio of their parent's house, off to one side so that the guests can enter and leave the house with ease. Ellie was dressed to the nines in a light pink dress with an empire waist and a pair of gold flats. Her hair was carefully curled and pulled back into a pony tail with bits of orangey-red hair framing her delicate, china-doll like face. Josie snorted and looked down at her own outfit. She was wearing the same kind of clothes she had on any other day: a teal singlet and a pair of loose, frayed and faded jeans tucked into her favourite buckled brown boots. Her face was void of any make up and her hair combed out with the bangs swept to one side and styled into place with a bit of pomade that smelled like apples. The only jewelry Josie ever wore were a bunch of leather bracelets on one wrist.

"Don't feel the need to," Josie replied. She wasn't a "dressy" kind of girl. She avoided dresses when she could. The last time she had to wear a dress was when she was a bridesmaid for her sister's wedding five years ago, and she had to be bribed into wearing that.

Ellie smirked in a condescending manner to her sister. "Fine. But let me give you something to dress up your... uh, duds, with." Ellie reached to the back of her neck and unclasped the necklace she was wearing. It was a simple strand of multi-coloured beads with a small gold charm in the shape of a bird hanging from it.

"El, you don't h-have to. Sadie m-made it for you," Josie said. "I c-can't accept it!"

"Don't worry, Sadie made like five of these for me," Ellie said. She reached over around Josie's neck and clasped the necklace on. "Now that's an improvement. And you got something to remember your favourite sister and niece while you're away!"

"T-thanks," Josie said. She reached up and stroked the bird with one finger. "I mean it."

Josie took in one more sweeping glance around the yard. To be honest, big parties were never Josie's thing. There were too many guests, many of them people she didn't know very well. She couldn't even find Cecelia among the crowd, and she said she was coming. As a loner, she would have preferred a smaller shindig with close family and friends at a local restaurant instead. But since this was Ellie throwing the party, it commanded a huge guest list. This was coming from the woman whose wedding had three hundred guests and got featured in one of Australia's top bridal magazines. "Nice party you have here," she remarked, "Didn't realize we would have a theme. Should've brought my grass skirt and coconut bra!"

"No one said I couldn't have a theme for my sister's going away party," Ellie said, "plus I wanted to use these decorations again after David's birthd- Sadie, you wanna say 'hi' to Aunt Jo? "

Sadie had left her place on the lawn chair and was now clutching the hem of her mother's dress with a chubby hand. She then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around one of Josie's legs, hugging tightly. Once she let go, Josie crouched down to her level. "Hey Sadie, how are you," she asked in a sweet voice.

Sadie smiled and signed, "Hi Aunt Jo. I'm ok. Do you like my new dress?" Then she turned on her heels so Josie could see the dress, a simple yellow polka dot dress with a flared skirt that fanned out as she spun around.

"You look very beautiful in it," Josie replied. Sadie smiled and hugged her again.

"What do you say, Sadie," Ellie asked. Sadie signed a "thank you" before scampering off to join her father.

"For a three-year-old, she's really good with sign language," Josie remarked.

"She's learning a new word a day," Ellie said, smiling, still amazed that her mute toddler daughter could command the English language so quickly and so well. "David can't wait to teach her how to type. He thinks she would be a talented writer."

Made sense, Josie thought. David McCain worked as an editor for a publishing company in downtown Perth. In his spare time, he was an amateur writer now at work on his first novel, though he has been reluctant to tell anyone what it was about. Not even Ellie knew what he was writing about.

Somewhere across the yard, someone was tapping a glass and shouting, "friends, family, and people crashing because of the booze, lend me your ears!"

All the party attendees turned to see where the announcement was coming from. Mr. Granger was standing by the refreshment table, clutching a beer bottle with one hand and a metal spoon with the other. "Thank you," Mr. Granger began, "now that the guest of honour is here up tonight, I'd like to propose a toast."

"Ah, Dad, you don't have to," Josie said. Her cheeks were now turning to a crimson blush.

He ignored his daughter's statement and instead raised his beer bottle in the air. "I'm so proud of you, Jo. You're finally hitting the big time. Things can only get better from here, right?"

By now, all the guests turned to Josie's direction. She was still standing on the patio, one hand gripping her lower jaw, smiling but embarrassed. God she hated it when the limelight was on her. This was the type of attention Ellie and her mother loved.

"To Josie," Mr. Granger finished before taking a drink. The crowd repeated with, "to Josie" before taking a sip from their drinks.

"Figure it's time to jump on the bandwagon," Charlie said. He pushed his way to the crowd and joined his father's side. He clutched a glass of beer in his right hand and raised it high.

"Charlie, you better not be turning this to a comedy roast," Ellie snapped. "Remember what you did at my wedding reception?"

"Our wedding reception, honey," David corrected her, still stationed at his grill and piling a plate high with hamburger patties.

"Admit it, El," Charlie said, "your wedding reception would've been a bust without my comedic talent."

"It's true," a Granger cousin hooted from the back.

"But seriously, I'm not doing a roast today," Charlie continued, "I'm saving that for Josie's thirtieth birthday. But before I do anything else, Jo, get over here!"

Josie shook her head. "I'd rather stay back here," she said.

"Nah, you come here," Charlie shot back.

"Fine, but I'm only doing this because I like you," Josie replied. She stomped through the crowd of guests and joined her brother at his side. Once she by him, Charlie swung his left arm over her shoulder, bringing her close to him.

"I'm proud of you, Jo," Charlie said, "you went from doing crappy action movies and failed TV pilots to working on big budget Hollywood blockbusters!"

"It's nothing," Josie insisted. "It's just my job. It's no different from being prom-

"Just your job," Charlie hooted, "dude, look at what you're doing for the next year! You're first gig on a Hollywood action movie battling aliens in space. Coming back here to do that Robert Pattinson-futuristic-car-jacking-outlaw movie-"

"Which reminds me, you have to bring me to the set of that one" Ellie shouted from the back. "I'll die if I can't meet Robert Pattinson and you get to!"

Charlie smiled before continuing. "And what's not last and sure as hell not least, a certain Robert Rodriguez wants you for a Machete 3. C'mon sis, that's just pure awesomeness. No one else can say they did all that, and before they turned twenty-eight!"

"If you i-insist," Josie said with a smile.

"Jesus, Josie, you're actually doing all that, why didn't you tell us," one of the guests Josie recognized as a neighbor asked. "I'm a huge Robert Rodriguez fan!"

There was a good reason. The only people Josie told about the casting news was her parents, siblings, and Cecelia. There was no way anyone else would know unless someone told them. Personally, the less people to know the better. She didn't want to be seen as a show off or be chased down the street once everyone knew about her celebrity connection. Josie had actually seen that once. Five years ago, Josie and Ellie in downtown looking at wedding dresses when they saw a young woman being pursued by the paparazzi. While Josie didn't know who she was, Ellie (who loved reading fashion magazines) instantly recognized her as a local supermodel whose name Josie can't remember.

"To my sister, the female Jason Statham," Charlie said, raising his beer high in the night sky.

"Jason Statham is an action star, not a stunt double," Josie corrected under her breath. But no one else caught that. Instead everyone raised their glasses and bottles and drank in her honour.

"Seriously, Jo, I don't see why you just can't just stay here," Mrs. Granger said.

"Why are you bringing this up now? I'm leaving the day after tomorrow and it's too late to change anything," Josie said.

It was nearing one in the morning and the last guests had left half an hour ago. The five Grangers, including David and Sadie, were sitting in lawn chairs and chaise lounges arranged in a circle on the patio. Charlie and David were roasting marshmallows over an open flame in a fire pit erected in the middle while Ellie was cradling a sleeping Sadie in her lap and Mr. Granger was kicking back with another beer.

"I just saw on the news this morning about this Green Flu in the States. I don't like how it sounds," Mrs. Granger said, "I'd feel safer if you didn't go and just stayed here."

"Mum, I'm twenty-seven. I can make my own decisions. Plus this is my first Hollywood film," Josie said before being cut off by Charlie.

"It's not even being filmed in Hollywood," Charlie pointed out, "it's being filmed in Georgia!"

"So, plenty of movies are filmed in Georgia," Ellie said, "the Hunger Games was filmed in Georgia!"

"That was North Carolina," Josie corrected her. "Bit further up north. But that's not the point. The point is, this going to be my first time working on a major Hollywood movie. And I'm working with a really good director. And it's going shot at this new studio so I bet there's going to be a lot of security"

"I don't care how well your movie does, I just don't want you to get that Green Flu. It sounds nasty," Mrs. Granger said.

"I'll be fine, Mum. I'll only be gone for a couple of months and then I'll be back in Australia before you know it. I promise," Josie said.


	3. Arrival

The flight between Perth and Atlanta was a nightmare. It had taken Josie three full days to reach her destination instead of the twenty-four hours that the travel website she got her tickets on said it would take. In between flights she had to stop at two different airports, Sydney International and LAX, before touching down at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. At Sydney, a bomb threat put the airport under lock down while the police scanned the threatened flight before confirming that the call was just a hoax. Those twenty-four hours at Sydney International were spent sleeping in the waiting area over night while reassuring her mother hourly over the phone that she was ok and that no one had been blown up.

Then there was the incident in Los Angeles.

As Josie was going through the security scanners, a TSA agent pulled her aside over a possible terrorist threat. As it turned out, the scanners had picked up on a breath mint tin in her carry-on that they took to be part of a bomb. The only thing that spared Josie from an aggressive pat-down and a possible assault charge against her was the common sense of another TSA agent who reasoned that an Altoid tin filled with mints is very harmless.

By the time she reached Atlanta, Josie was jet lagged, angry as hell, and thankful that she wouldn't have to report to work for another three days. She passed though the crowd of passengers leaving the flight and made her way to the luggage carousel. As she waited for her duffel bag to show up on the carousel, Josie watched as the passengers grabbed their bags, reunited with friends and family, and left the airport. There several people scattered throughout the airport carrying signs with other people's names written on them. At a security counter a few feet away from her, a young man dressed in a crumpled shirt and slacks was arguing with a security guard over a suitcase that got confiscated.

"Sir, the handlers noticed that your bag was vibrating and had to call the police. It's a security procedure," the frustrated guard explained.

"I don't care if it was vibrating, my suit is in that bag and I need it for a business meeting I have to attend tomorrow," the man snapped. "And how in the hell can my bag vibrate."

"It happens all the time, sir," the guard explained, "nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but once in a while we get a..."

He dropped his voice into a whisper. Josie couldn't hear what he was saying but had an idea of what it could be. A dildo. She had seen a movie a few years ago where a similar scene happened.

As soon as she saw her bag slide out on the carousel, Josie grabbed it and made her way out of the airport. According to the casting agency who had hired her, there was going to be a representative waiting for her who is going to act as a guide while she stayed in Atlanta. But there were so many people milling about she couldn't see her guide.

If only she knew what he looked like. All she knew was that it was a man.

"Well that will be easy to find," Josie thought as she walked through the glass doors and outside. It was even more chaotic outside than inside as cars and vans quickly parked and departed from the sidewalk, depositing passengers who scrambled to get their bags and keep their families together. Just a few feet away, a little girl with beaded cornrows was throwing a tantrum that caused many to stop and stare.

"But Mommy, I wanna go to Cawifornia," the girl, who couldn't be older than three, screamed. "I wanna go to Cawifornia with Robbie!"

"Honey, I know you do, but Mommy needs you here in Georgia," the girl's mother said as she tried to calm the little girl down. A college aged boy in a USC sweatshirt who could only be the girl's brother, was looking very embarrassed and apologizing to the others for the commotion.

Josie was so busy starring the scene the girl was causing she almost didn't register the hand on her shoulder.

When she realized what was happening, she whipped around and grabbed the hand by the wrist, ready to kick the offender back when he shouted, "no, don't hurt me!"

She let go and the man stumbled back. He was pretty young, probably just out of college, with tan skin and dark hair. He was also dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. He extended his hand. "My name's Jordan Packer. I'm the rep sent from the Stunt Actors Guild."

"Pleased to meet you Jordan," Josie said, taking his hand and shaking it. "Josie, Josie Granger."

"I already know who you are," Jordan said. He opened his messenger bag and pulled out a file. "Had to familiarize myself with this before you came."

Josie took the file and opened it. Like she had expected, it was a dossier about her. Included was her résumé, contact and insurance information, and a head shot she had taken back in Perth. She closed the file and gave it back to Jordan. He put the file back in his bag and reached for her duffel.

"I can carry this myself," Josie said, swinging the straps around her shoulder so that the bag rested on her back.

"You sure? Alright. Anyway, my car's parked here," Jordan said, leading her down the bustling sidewalk to a parked Honda.

"What, no limousine," Josie asked jokingly.

Jordan chuckled as he unlocked his car. "Sorry, fresh out," he said, "but the agency did book a nice hotel for you and the rest of the out-of-towners."

Jordan was right when he said that she would staying in a nice hotel. The Wisteria is located near downtown Atlanta, close enough to the studio where Josie was going to call her workplace for the next three months. According to Jordan's spiel about it as he drove Josie to the hotel, the Wisteria was originally a bank that closed down during the Great Depression. It didn't become a hotel until 1943, when an Atlanta area millionaire bought the building and converted it into a hotel. The name came from the wisteria plants that grew over the awnings of the hotel entrance and has been featured in many films and television shows.

But Josie wasn't paying attention to what Jordan was saying. She had blocked out his lecture on Atlanta hotels and instead was looking out the passenger window. Atlanta, on the whole, felt no different from any other big city Josie had been to (though those big cities have been limited to Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne). It was a sunny day in late June and the people of Atlanta were out and about with their business. The streets were packed with cars and buses, making travel slow. Jordan took the slow traffic as an opportunity to point out all the landmarks of Atlanta.

"We just passed by the Georgia State University campus," Jordan explained, "and coming up to our left is the Centennial Olympic Park. I actually have an uncle who worked security during the '96 Games and two cousins who participated in the Opening Ceremonies. So if you were watching the Opening Ceremonies, you might have seen them on TV. If we had time, I could swing by and show you the Coca-Cola factory. I have a couple of friends who work there and they get me in for free when I want to. But we're on a tight schedule and have to drop you off at the hotel."

"So you live here," Josie asked.

"Not really. I grew up in Rayford, which is about two hours away from here," Jordan explained, "but I live in Atlanta for work. Still got family over there though."

He shifted gears and pulled up to the curb in front of a grand hotel down town. It was a grand building towering at fifteen stories and build out of white stone. The green and white awning over the golden double doors leading into the lobby had thick boughs of light purple wisterias growing over it, with thick clumps of the flowers hanging over the sides. Porters in dark blue uniforms were carting luggage on brass trolleys while guests followed behind. Jordan parked the car and got out, with Josie following in suit. As she was reaching for her duffel and her backpack, one of the porters came up to her and asked, "ma'am, would you like me to take your luggage?"

"No thanks, I can handle it," Josie said. She walked into the lobby and stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening with amazement. She had never stayed in a hotel as fancy as this before. Every inch of the lobby looked like it was carved out of marble: Marble columns, marble mosaic floors, a marble reception desk with a table top made of dark wood. Plush blue and purple striped couches and chairs were arranged in little groups. The place was decorated with expensive carpets and paintings of Atlanta from the turn of the century. In the center stood a white marble fountain decorated with carved dolphins and mermaids. Sunlight streamed in from the glass roof.

"So, see anything you like," Jordan asked as he walked back from the concierge desk. He handed her a key card. "You're room is 419 by the way."

"Thanks," Josie said, taking the key card and tucking it into her jacket pocket. She took one more sweeping glance at the lobby. "You guys really outdone yourselves. I've never been to a hotel this nice before."

She and Jordan took an elevator up to the fourth floor. As they walked down the carpeted and wallpapered hallways, Jordan said, "there's one more thing I forgot to mention. You also have a roommate. She's also a stunt double from LA named Chelsea Montoya. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," Josie said, "I've had roommates." After spending eighteen years sharing a room with Ellie, she figured she could deal with any one.

They stopped at the room labeled "419". Josie opened it with her key card and walked inside. On one of the beds sat a young woman, probably in her mid to late twenties, sitting on a bed and watching a basketball game on TV. The desk pushed up against it was littered with empty soda cans and beer bottles and an ice bucket.

"Hey Chelsea," Jordan said. She didn't look up and instead kept her focus on the game. "Chelsea. Yo, Chels!"

"What," she snapped. She grabbed the remote and turned down the volume.

"You got a new roommate," Jordan said. "This is Josie and she's going to be bunking with you during the shoot."

Chelsea rolled off the bed and walked towards Jordan and Josie. She begrudgingly took Josie's hand and gave it a weak shake. "You already know my name so no use in introducing myself," she explained sourly. Josie could just tell she was going to get along with Chelsea.

"Anyway, there's a cast dinner in the Wisteria restaurant and bar at six that you girl's are slated to attend," Jordan continued. Josie had already deposited her bags on the remaining bed. "It's just a meet up for everyone working on the movie. Shooting won't start for another three days, but you're both expected to be up and ready to go by five o'clock on the first day. I'm going to be driving you two and three other stunt actors to the set, so don't worry about having a stranger drive you. You girls have my number?"

"I do," Chelsea said. She was back on her bed with a bottle of Corona in one hand, the remote in the other.

"I don't," Josie said. Jordan handed her a business card.

"Anyway, I'll see you guys in a couple of hours," Jordan said. He walked out the door, closing it behind him.

At a quarter after six, Josie found herself standing in the middle of the hotel bar with a beer in one hand and feeling awkward. While everyone was dressed up, she was still wearing the same clothes she had gotten off the plane with. She didn't own anything nice. She was a jeans-and-singlet type of girl and it wasn't going to change in the foreseeable future.

As she watched as the cast and crew mingled, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She whipped her head around to see Jordan standing with two other people. One was a middle-aged man with a shaved head and wearing a blue and silver striped shirt with a Bluetooth wireless in one ear. The other was a woman in her early thirties with short blonde hair like Josie's and large blue-green eyes. The woman had a familiar look to her, and Josie was sure she had seen the woman before but couldn't pinpoint where.

"Hey Josie, I wanna introduce you to the girl you're doubling for," Jordan said. He gestured to the pair standing next to him. "This is Alison Kaiser and her agent, Martin."

Alison Kaiser. Josie studied the girl's face, trying to remember where she had seen her.

"You probably remember her from movies like_ Zero Gravity _and _Persei,_" Jordan continued when he noticed Josie's confused look. "And, I don't know if this show ever aired in Australia, but she got her start on _Space Aces_."

_Space Aces_. Josie's eyes widened as she recognized the title. Of course, it was all coming back to her. How could she have forgotten the show she had loved as a girl and the actress who portrayed her favourite character?

Alison Kaiser began her career as a child star on a show called _Space Aces_, a program Josie and her siblings grew up watching. _Space Aces _revolved around the adventures of Rory Walker, a thirteen-year-old Earth boy from the thirty-first century sent to live on an intergalactic space colony with his star ship captain father after his mother died. He was joined on these adventures, which took him to many planets and galaxies and often built up to an epic showdown with the villain of the week, by the five friends he made on the colony. There was Euin, a shape shifting orphan from Titan who made his living as a thief, Asimov, a bookish mechanic and inventor who hailed from the Horsehead Nebula, Tarkas and Deja, a pair of warlike twins from Mars, and Celestia, a white-haired demi-goddess from the moon who served as the Rory's love interest.

As a girl, Josie would wake up early Saturday morning to catch the latest adventures of Rory and friends as they faced off with space pirates in the Milky Way Galaxy or put into a battle royale on Mars or finding a way off an asteroid that was hurtling towards the sun. And she and Ellie would get into the most terrific fights over who was the better character: Deja or Celestia. It was no surprise that Josie admired the brave and daring Deja, played by Alison Kaiser, while Ellie preferred the beautiful and gentle Celestia.

Their rivalry over who was the better character got to be so bad, their father grounded them from watching new episodes of _Space Aces_ until they resolved their differences.

"Oh my God," Josie stammered, her face turning to a deep red blush.

"I'm going to leave you girl's alone," Martin said, "Alison, if you need me I'll be at the restaurant."

He and Jordan left, leaving the two girls at the bar. Alison sat down on a bar stool and ordered an appletini with Josie following in suit.

"I was a huge fan of _Space Aces_ when I was a kid," Josie blurted out as the two woman sat down. The party had now started to come into full swing, with guests filling up the hotel bar and adorning restaurant. The speakers, which hung over the bar, were blasting dance hits that made it difficult to hear or even speak loudly. "Deja was my favourite character, of course. It's because of her that I went into the stunt double business."

"Really," Alison asked, cocking an eye brow in confusion. On the show, Deja was a teenage girl who wanted to become a warrior. By the series finale, she was made a co-captain of a newly established Galactic Guard with her twin brother.

"Not really," Josie admitted, "it was really I wanted to be as brave and as badass as her. The stunt double gigs didn't start till I was twenty. But I did train as a cop. Kind of like a warrior."

"Yeah, kinda," Alison agreed.

"But seriously, I just loved your character. Of course, you probably have a lot of fans telling you this all the time. Hell, I even dressed up as her for Halloween a couple of times. Mum wouldn't let me get that half-mohawk you had but I got a lot of compliments about it from other fans when I show my old pictures."

"You know, we actually held a costume contest back when it was on the air. Did you ever enter that," Alison asked. "I'm just saying cause the cast were involved with picking a winner. So maybe I saw a picture of you as Deja."

"Now that you mention it, I did," Josie said, smirking at the memory. "I did. Got an honourable mention and won this."

Josie extended her right hand and showed Alison one of the leather bracelets on her wrist. It was a large cuff made of aged leather and stamped with tribal Martian markings and set with a round, bright red stone that glinted as if there was a fire trapped inside. Deja wore an identical bracelet on the show, claiming that it was a badge given to the bravest members of her clan. To this day, Josie never takes that bracelet off. She always insisted it was her good luck charm.

"I remember that. The prizes the winners got were like prize packs and replicas of some of the props," Alison added. "You, replicas of Rory's flight jacket, Asimov's journal, Celestia's pendant, the like. So I am sure I might have seen your entry. But that contest happened over fifteen years ago and my memory isn't all that great. Hey, Miles! 'Scuse me, just wanna catch up with an old friend."

Alison hopped off her bar stool and slipped through the throngs of guests towards her friend, but not before she doubled back for her appletini. Josie followed suit.

"This question's been on my mind for years," Josie said as they passed the crowds, "but do you think Deja would have hooked up with Euin after the show ended? Or would she return to Mars and shack up with a warrior from her clan?"

"Eh, I never saw her as someone who'd be in a long-term relationship," Alison said. She stretched her neck and peered over the sea of heads as she searched for Miles. "But I'm aware of the Euin/Deja pairing. I get fanfics sent to me all the time with them in it. Between you and me, they're really terrible."

"And don't even get me started on that Deja/Celestia pairing," Josie snorted. Why anyone would pair the pacifistic Celestia with the belligerent Deja was beyond all comprehension.

"Yeah, that too," Alison agreed. "Oh, Miles. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

She ran up and embraced a young and reedy looking young man. "What brings you to Atlanta," she asked.

"We're touring," Miles replied. "We're off to Charlotte tomorrow."

"Really," Alison said. She turned to Josie and said, "I'm really sorry to cut our chat short. But do you mind letting me..."

She gesticulated to Miles.

"Not at all," Josie said. "We're going to be working together for the next few months. We have plenty of time to talk."

Josie couldn't resist smiling for the rest of the night. With the meeting of the actress behind her childhood hero and the start of a new career opportunity, the hell she had been through in the last three days seemed nonexistent.

* * *

_A/N: I apologize for the lack of an update. I have nothing to blame but laziness. On the plus side, I have a few chapters written up now. _

_I also apologize if this chapter is boring. Things will start to pick up in the next chapter. I've already designated the first three chapters of this story as set up for characters and setting, the like. _

_There's nothing else I can say belongs to anyone else. All the characters mentioned in this chapter are my property, including the Wisteria and the show Space Aces (though I will fess up and say that the show is very loosely based on a scifi show I used to watch as a kid and the names of the characters are borrowed from two sci fi writers, as well as from The Princess of Mars and MLP:FiM. Rory is not meant to be a shout out to Doctor Who though. I picked that name out of random). _

_Happy readings._


	4. Incident

_Atlanta, Georgia_

_Two months before Infection_

It was now six weeks into the shoot and Josie still hadn't had the time to meet up with her favourite childhood celebrity. Or even have a moment to herself. As soon as she was let off work, all she could do was grab a bite to eat from a nearby Burger Tank, go back to the hotel, and sleep from ten till five, when she's expected to get up and report to the set. In contrast, Chelsea, the twenty-year-old she was rooming with, still had enough energy to not only do her job but also go out until the wee hours of the morning.

On the Monday that marked the seventh week of filming, Josie had woken up with a stiff back. "Lockdown of Sector Six" was by far the most grueling project she had worked on, and the last two weeks were the worst.

They were filming the movie's climax, an action-charged show down between the brave residents of Sector Six and the alien forces that have taken control of the base, that required Josie and the stunt doubles filling in for the film's stars to pull in double duties of running, jumping, falling on to crash mats, and fighting off costumed actors with weapons and martial arts. And because she was doubling for an actress whose character was a tough, no-nonsense captain of the base, Josie found herself performing the more dangerous stunts. Last Friday, Josie found herself doing a scene in which she had to get from an overrun engine room to a secure control room, all while fighting off over fifty "alien" attackers with only a sub-machine gun and her fists, crossing a narrow steel beam over a thirty-foot chasm, running through a narrow corridor that had exploding circuit boxes and haywire electrical components, finally culminating into her performing a shoulder roll through a sliding steel door before it closed shut behind her.

She stumbled out of bed and took two pain pills from a bottle on the bedside cabinet. As she waited for the pills to do their magic, she turned on the television to the morning news.

Like on the news broadcast Josie had seen at Charlie's house over a month ago, there was that same young and pretty reporter in a crisp suit standing outside of a building. This time the building wasn't a hospital but the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

"There are now more reported cases of the Green Flu coming out of Pennsylvania, as well as from New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The CDC has now confirmed that the disease is traveling down south. And as they look for a cure to the disease, which has now lead to a hundred deaths on the East Coast, the CDC and CEDA strongly urges that all civilians..."

"Oh, will you turn that fucking TV off," a low voice grumbled from the other bed.

Instead of turning the television off, Josie reached for a heavy pillow and chucked it heavily at Chelsea. It smacked the younger woman in the head. She angrily threw off the blankets and glared at Josie. "What was that for," she snapped.

"We gotta get down to the lobby in," Josie looked down at the alarm clock. It was 6:13 A.M, "ten minutes if we wanna get to work on time. Get up, sleepy head. Don't make me throw another pillow at you."

Chelsea groaned loudly and rolled back on the bed. Josie rolled her eyes as she got dressed. She never liked young people. No, Josie thought as she put her boots on, not all young people. She loved her little brother and her niece. And she got along well with her brother's housemates and with Cecelia, who is three years younger than her. But most young people in general she didn't care for. And she hated working with anyone younger than her. It was easy to explain why. She felt that the younger someone was, the less likely they were to care about their jobs and if they were going to do their best that day. Case point with Chelsea.

Josie could deal with Chelsea's curt attitude. She's had to deal with that before with Ellie when they were teenagers. But it was the little things Chelsea did like oversleeping and running late to work or staying out until one in the morning on a work day that got on her nerves. And yes, while Josie did those same things back home, she made a point to only get drunk and oversleep when she wasn't expected on set in the morning.

As the alarm clock ticked to 6:25 A.M, Josie noticed that Chelsea still wasn't up and ready to go.

"Oh for the love of God," Josie grumbled. She marched over to Chelsea's bed, grabbed the younger girl's ankles, and yanked her off the bed!

"Alright, alright, I'm up," Chelsea snapped. She pulled herself up by grabbing the end of the bed and shakily stood up on her legs and stomped to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. For a moment, Josie thought there might be something wrong. She couldn't pinpoint why, but for some reason, Chelsea's olive toned skin looked paler. Her eyes darker and more sunken in. Her black hair, normally thick and lush, looked flat and lifeless.

Nah, it can't be, Josie thought. She had been out club hopping again and didn't even come back till the wee hours of the morning. Josie should know. She was up until one the night before doing shots and watching _Futurama_ reruns with several other stunt actors in one of the rooms.

"Hey, I'm going down to the lobby," Josie said. She was now out the room and in the hallway.

"Whatever," Chelsea snapped back. It was loud enough to penetrate through two closed doors.

She ran down the hallway and caught the first elevator to the lobby. Joining her in the elevator were two of the stunt actors Josie had been carpooling to work with. As she looked around the enclosed space, she noticed something was wrong and asked, "where's Gary?"

"He left last night," one of the stunt actors, a man named Hank, answered. "He got a call that his wife got sick and had to be hospitalized."

"Shit, I'm sorry to hear about that," another stunt actor, Troy, said, "you know what it is?"

Hank shook his head. "Nah. But it sounded really bad."

"You know where he went off to," Josie asked.

"Philadelphia," Hank answered.

The elevator stopped at the lobby and the three walked out. Jordan was waiting by the double glass doors with a newspaper under one arm and a coffee cup in another. When he realized there were only three stunt actors to drive instead of five, he asked, "where's Gary and Chelsea?"

"Gary had to leave last night," Hank said before explaining what had happened the night before.

"And Chelsea overslept," Josie reported.

"Well, I hate to nag, but can you get Chelsea down here," Jordan asked.

"Yeah, sure."

Josie returned to room 419 and knocked on the door three times. "Yo, Chelsea, Jordan wants you down stairs, pronto."

No reply.

"Fine, I'm going in and you better be ready then," Josie said as she slid the key card through the lock and opened the door. The bathroom door was ajar and there was the sound of rushing water. As she neared the open door, her eyes widened at the horrifying scene in front of her.

Chelsea. Lying face down and unconscious in a pool of water and vomit.

All she could do was reach for the phone in her pocket and dial Jordan's number.

"You need to get over here. Now."

Filming was not canceled that day. Even when two members of the crew are absent, the show still must go on if that old cliché is anything to go by.

Instead of continuing the climax, the director instead changed the filming schedule they could film scenes that didn't need the use of Chelsea and Gary until they were ready to return to work or until the stunt actor agency could find replacements for them.

The day proved to be a mixed blessing for Josie. Though she had an easier workload that day (she and Troy spent the day training for an upcoming fight scene), she found herself unable to focus. All she could see was Chelsea's unconscious form lying in the bathroom. Sure she had seen people passed out punch drunk and lying in a pool of their own bodily fluids before, but Chelsea's incident left a nasty impression in her mind. First there was the way she looked. Chelsea looked like a corpse. And when Josie ran over and felt for a pulse, her skin felt burning hot to the touch.

Josie was no stranger to alcohol poisoning. She'd been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning twice in her life, when she was eighteen and twenty four, and she had friends who suffered from it as well. She knew all the symptoms: vomiting, seizures, slow and/or irregular breathing mental confusion, coma like state, and hypothermia.

Out of those seven major symptoms, Chelsea only had two. Vomiting and the coma-like state.

As soon as Jordan rushed into the room, they rolled Chelsea on to her back. Her breathing was progressively heavier and labored. Her eyes puffy and red.

"You gotta call 911," Jordan said. Josie nodded and dialed the number on his mobile. Within twenty minutes, paramedics were rushing into the small bathroom and loading the tiny, limp girl on a stretcher. Jordan dropped Josie, Troy, and Hank off at the set before setting off to the hospital to join Chelsea.

When Jordan returned to the set in the mid-afternoon, he asked the director if they could have a meeting. As soon as the remaining cast and crew gathered together, the director made two grim announcements.

"Alright everyone," he began, "I'm sure you're all aware of this by now, but two of our stunt actors have now officially dropped out of production for 'Lockdown of Sector Six'. Gary received a phone call from his home in Philadelphia telling him to come home. His wife has come down with the Green Flu and Gary feels that his place is back home with his family during this time. And then there is Chelsea. Chelsea has fallen ill and is in the hospital. As of now, the doctors are still doing tests on her and they're saying that she will be unable to return to the set. Nonetheless, production is still going to continue. We have gone so far into filming it's pointless to stop and scrap the project now. But I want everyone to keep Chelsea, Gary, and Gary's family in your thoughts, and depending on your brand of faith, in your prayers. That's all I have to say."

"Josie, you were there," Alison said after the meeting adjourned, "can you tell us what happened?"

As soon as Alison said that sentence, everyone within earshot turned to the two women and started coming closer to hear what they had to say. Actors, stunt doubles, crew members, even a pair of interns with the catering company providing lunch that day congregated around Alison and Josie.

"Look, it's nothing," Josie said. "There was nothing out of the ordinary. Except..."

"Except what," Troy asked.

"The symptoms, they were all screwed up," Josie recalled, grimacing at the memory of that morning. "I'm Australian. We're heavy drinkers and I've been through this before, but at first I thought Chelsea was going through alcohol poisoning."

"That can't be though," Troy said. "I went club hopping with Chelsea last night. She didn't have any drinks."

"I second that," a young woman with bright pink and blue hair confirmed. Josie recognized her as Keirsten from hair and make up, "I was there. Bartender wouldn't serve Chelsea because she's underage."

"Thirded," a wardrobe assistant called out.

"Fourthed," another stunt actor nicked named "Skids" said.

"Then if it's not alcohol poisoning, what was it," Taylor, one of the catering assistants, asked.

"The Flu," Josie said grimly.

* * *

_A/N: Dun dun dun. The Green Flu has reared its ugly head around and has arrived in Georgia. Things can only get worse from here. _

_And I hate to ask, but please review? It's nothing important. I just like getting reviews. Chapter Five should be posted soon._


	5. Aftermath

Remarkably, the rest of the week passed by without incident. Though news of Gary and Chelsea's departures had hit the entertainment news circuits, the only sources reporting about it were minor movie websites.

"I'm not surprised, had this happened to one of the actors, all the major entertainment news sites would be swarming all over this story," Jordan remarked before turning off his iPhone and placing it on the table next to him. It was a Thursday night, three days after Chelsea got sick, and she was still in the hospital. That night several of the crew were hanging around the pool area, chatting to one another from lawn chairs as they sipped colourful cocktails or squeezing in a couple of laps in the pool before bed. Josie was sitting on the pool's edge, dangling her bare feet in the warm water as she sipped a neon green cocktail garnished with pineapple wedges and a little paper umbrella. The bartender called it a Kiwi Kamikaze and she found it nice if a little too sweet.

Typical, Josie thought as she took another sip of the Kamikaze. No one ever paid attention to the perils of the stunt actor. All the attention was on the star of the movie. If a stunt actor got injured or got sick on the job, no one would bat an eyelash. She could easily be replaced, unlike an actor. In that case, the director would call for all shooting to stop until the actor got well or he replace the actor, a process that could take weeks.

In the seven years she worked in the stunt double business, the only time a stunt double's injury was reported on a major network like E!News was when David Holmes got paralyzed on the job. And even then, and this was just a theory she had, it only got reported because it happened while he was working on one of the Harry Potter movies.

"Speaking of Chelsea," Troy said as he got out of the pool, "you know what happened to her?"

"I have no idea," Jordan said, "her doctors are not confirming anything just yet. Except that if her condition worsens by the end of the week, they will have to transfer her to the CDC to be tested and quarantined."

"That serious," Troy asked.

"Of course it was serious or else she'd be back here, getting drunk off of a daiquiri, and trying to hump some guy in the jacuzzi," Josie muttered. God, was he really that stupid?

"You say something, Jo," Troy asked. He reached for a towel and began to dry off. As he grabbed for the towel, Josie couldn't help but notice Keirsten from hair and make up and a wardrobe assistant nearby ogling at Troy's dripping wet, half-naked figure.

Once, over a decade ago, Troy had been a popular underwear model in New York City. But as he got older, demand for him to appear on runways and in print ads began to wane and he eventually found himself pulling in two jobs: one as a Capoeira instructor in Los Angeles and the other as a stunt double. Even at the age of thirty-five, Troy still retained his chiseled, bronzed body, thick black hair, and sparkling black eyes.

Josie glanced up at him. While she could see that Troy is a handsome man, she never found him attractive. Unlike every straight woman working on "Lockdown", who made no effort to hide the girlish giggles and hushed whispers into their friends ears when Troy was in sight. It felt like every woman on set was in love with Troy except Josie, who just viewed him as a friend. A friend who lacked common sense, but still a friend.

"Yeah, I'm going back up to my room. See ya'll in the morning," Josie spat. She marched back into the hotel, pushing aside guests and staff until she reached the elevator.

As soon as she reached her hotel room, she slammed the door behind her and collapsed on her bed. Since Monday's incident, she has had the room all to herself. Sure, she had offers from everyone on set, from Keirsten from hair and makeup, who offered to share her studio flat with her, to Alison, who invited her to stay in her penthouse suite with the marble bathroom, windows that offered a panoramic view of downtown Atlanta, and the minibar that served the finest liquor the Wisteria had to offer. And while the offers had good intentions, Josie nonetheless rejected them. She didn't want all this special treatment lavished upon her just because she found Chelsea in the second worst possible state she could find her in. As far as she was concerned, if they wanted to show they cared, they would have just pitched in for a bouquet or signed a big old Get Well Soon card and delivered it to the hospital Chelsea was staying at. She was the one suffering after all.

If they hadn't already done that.

As Josie stretched out on the bed, her phone began to ring. She picked it up and said, "Josie speaking. Who's this?"

"Hey, Jo, it's Cecelia," her friend answered from a million miles away.

"Oh, hey Cece, anything interesting happen while I was gone," she asked.

"Not really, compared to where you are," Cece sounded really worried. There was an edge of panic in her voice.

"What's wrong, you sound like you just saw a crime," Josie said. She checked the alarm clock. It was 10:34 P.M. If her calculations were right, it had to be 10:34 A.M the next day back in Perth. There was no way Cece could be at any of the clubs they went to together. "Hey, are you at home now?"

"Yeah. Sorry if I sound all panicky and shit, it's just I'm watching the news and this reporter lady said the Green Flu has hit Georgia. There's already been at least one confirmed case. And..."

Cecelia started to choke a little. "I'm sorry, I just had to see if you were alright. They're already saying that up to a hundred people already died from it. And that it's going to get worse."

"Cece," Josie whispered, "Cece, just calm down and take deep breaths. Ok? You're freaking out too much." She paused for a minute. "Just imagine your happy page for a moment." Another long pause. "You feeling better now?"

"Kinda," Cecelia said. "I- I guess I'm just overreacting. I'm being over worked at the shop and my mum is giving me all kinds of crap. You know. How I should've gone to uni instead of being a shop girl. And not having a boyfriend. I mean... my baby sister just announced she's getting married and she's only eighteen! And I've been stressing out over all the little things, you know what I mean? And this Green Flu shit and you're not here. I just had to know if you were still alright."

"I'm alri- hold on, I got another call. Hello," Josie said.

"Jo! Ah, thank God," Charlie said. "Hey did you hear about the Gr-"

"Yes, and if Mum's freaking out, tell her I'm fine," she dialed back to Cecelia, "you still here?"

"Yeah, who was it?"

"Charlie," Josie replied. "But still..." her words were cut off with her phone ringing again. "Look, can I call you back in a moment, some loser is interrupting our convo."

"Sure, but you will call back, right?"

"Of course I will." Josie hung up and took the next call. "Speaking?"

"Josie," Ellie shrieked from half a world away,"I just heard that the G..."

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm not sick. If I was, I'd tell you or I'd get a doctor to tell you," Josie snarled into the receiver. "Anything else you wanna ask? Like do I have a boyfriend now? Or met someone famous? Or tried to steal something from the set? And by the way, the answers are no, yes, and maybe. Any questions?"

"You don't have to be so rude," Ellie said in a huff before hanging up.

Josie let out a groan before starting to dial Cecelia's number. But as she had punched in the third digit, the phone began to ring. Again.

"What the fuck do you want," she shouted.

"Is that how you speak to your own mother," Mrs. Granger angrily asked.

As soon as she recognized her mother's voice, Josie's anger and frustration melted away. "Mum! I'm so sorry! I-I didn't realize it was you."

"How about you call back when you have better attitude," she said, still using that furious tone of voice Josie hadn't heard since she was a girl, before hanging up. This left the younger woman sitting on the edge of the bed, phone still in hand, looking down on the floor, guilty. Almost unconsciously, Josie dialed Cecelia's number and held the phone up to her ear, listening to the dial tone and hoping she picked up.

"Hello," Cecelia said. Josie closed her eyes in relief. It was so comforting to hear her best friend's voice, that soft, gentle voice with a subtle hint of a British accent left over from a childhood growing up in Cornwall. "Josie, is that you?"

"Hey Cece," Josie answered.

"Something wrong," she asked, "you don't sound right." There was a long pause. "Y-you're not getting sick, are you?"

"No, I'm not getting sick," Josie said, "It's just. I kinda yelled at my mum. She was just calling to see if I was ok. And I was just so pissed off because I keep being interrupted by Charlie and Ellie."

"Really? You yelled at your mum," Cecelia asked, "well welcome to my world."

"I've never done that to her," Josie whispered, bowing her head down and gripping her hair with her free hand. "At least I haven't done that since I was sixteen."

"Well here's a word of advice, get over it," Cecelia said, "knowing your mum she is going to forgive you for your outburst as long as you tell her what happened with Charlie and Ellie. Unlike my mum. That woman stays mad forever."

"Yeah, you're right," Josie said, smiling, "so, I've only got a month of filming left. You gonna be ok till I get back? No panic attacks over the Green Flu?"

She could just envision Cecelia, probably sitting on her bed with a breakfast tray laden with eggs Benedict and a mimosa in a champagne flute next to her and the television tuned to the local news, smiling as she said, "yeah, I think I can deal with it. You come back home, alright? I don't want my best mate calling me and saying she met some handsome Yank and is gonna be staying in America with him? And Josie?"

"I'm listening."

"You stay safe now. Don't go getting the Green Flu and start dying on me. You hear that?"

"Yeah, I hear you loud and clear. Same goes for you. See you in a month. Bye."

"Bye," Cecelia said before hanging up the phone.

Josie fell back onto the bed once more and stared up at the ceiling. Really? Just one reported case of the Green Flu and it's breaking international news that's sending people in a panic? Sure Cecelia was prone to panic attacks. She was always what her mother called a "nervous Nelly". But Charlie? The only time the laid back Charlie freaked out over anything was the waiting for the results of a maths exam that determined if he would be held back in his senior year of secondary school.

And then there was Ellie. Don't even get her started on Ellie. This was the woman who almost developed a Valium addiction while planning her grossly lavish wedding after all.

Josie snorted at the overreaction of the American people. How typical of them to blow things out of proportion. She still remembered that business with the Bird Flu a few years back and how all the talking heads on TV said there were going to be death tolls rising to the tens of thousands and mass panic and rioting and the possibility of new world order. But none of that happened and by the following year, all the major news networks around the world were putting the fear of another animal-based flu threat in the hearts and minds of the gullible citizens.

Besides, she thought, West Nile Virus can kill up to a couple hundred people per summer. And no one went into a mass panic over that. It was just one of those everyday evils.

_One week later._

"Major, how could you ever let those parasites into the base," Captain Annie Brooks angrily shouted at Major Thomas Chamberlain. The two were standing on a raised metal platform above a deep abyss that lead to nowhere except death. "You just condemned five thousand people to death! They were in your charge and you're just going to let them die!"

Major Chamberlain, a tall and slender man in his early fifties with a rugged and handsome face that has seen the worst humanity had to offer, menacingly whispered, "no, it is the five thousand who are the parasites. This planet was never theirs. It belongs to the Sarapites. I'm sorry, Annie." He edged closer to the young woman, who was now leaning against the metal railing that separated her from an inevitable end. He grabbed her by the lapels of her flight suit and then-

"Cut," the director shouted. Jasper McMillan, the actor playing Major Chamberlain, released his grip on Alison Kaiser. "Alright, where's my stunt double," he asked.

"Right here," Josie said. She had stood on the sidelines, watching the scene play out.

"Hold on, before you go, I gotta make sure you look right for the cameras," Keirsten said as she took a make up brush and added one last touch up to Josie's face. She wasn't fond of make up but was thankful she didn't have to wear a wig this time, unlike some of the other roles she did in the past. Even if that meant having her hair buzzed into a "jarhead" cut on the first day of filming "Lockdown". Josie reached up and stroked the nearly nonexistent strands of hair on the side of her head. At least she knew her hair would grow back within a month after filming wrapped.

"Ah, don't mess it up," Keirsten moaned, playfully slapping away Josie's hand. "It took me half an hour to get it to match Alison's."

"You shaved most of my head and then shellacked what was left into place," Josie said. "How can it get messed up now? Seriously, if someone dropped a bucket of water on me, it'll still look pristine."

"We're waiting," the director shouted from his chair. Josie jogged on to the sound stage, passing by Alison as she departed in the process.

"Good luck," Alison whispered.

"Thanks," Josie replied. But knew she wouldn't be needing it. She had already rehearsed this part and knew the routine inside and out. She resumed the place by the railing that Alison had occupied moments before. Once she was in the correct position, Jasper took hold of the lapels of her flight suit.

"Think you can handle all this," Josie asked, gesturing to her figure.

"Please, you're talking to a guy who can bench press 180 pounds at the gym," he said.

"I'll take that as a yes," she said.

"Action," the director shouted once he was satisfied with how the scene looked.

"This planet was never theirs," Jasper said, returning to the menacing tone of voice of his character, "it belongs to the Sarapites. I'm sorry, Annie." He began to lift Josie before dangling her over the abyss. She started to struggle, fighting off the man who was going to end her life. "But you know too much."

And he released her.

Josie hurtled down five, ten feet, all the while fumbling for a small contraption built into her harness. Just as she presses the button that will unleash a small grappling hook (that will be CGI'ed in during post-production work) that latches itself to the railing, allowing her to climb up the rope and reach the base before Major Chamerlain does, she fell onto the crash mat below.

"Cut! Perfect," the director shouted. "Now let's move on to the next scene."

Josie clambered off the crash mat to the waiting crew surrounding her.

"So how was it," Keirsten asked.

"Exhilarating," she remarked. As she rolled off the mat and onto stable ground, she could swear her stomach growled. "I could go for a bite though."

She walked off the sound stage to a big, white tent erected outside. Inside, actors and crew members huddled around make shift benches and tables, having lunch and chatting with their friends. She grabbed a plate and began heaping on large amounts of pasta with puttanesca sauce from one of the trays set up to the side.

"Hey, Taylor, you guys have any garlic bread left," she asked when she noticed there wasn't any.

"I'm sorry, is that your girlfriend?"

Josie looked up to see a sour looking young woman in chefs whites staring back at her.

"Eh, you're not Taylor," Josie said. "And HE," putting strong emphasis on "he" "is not my girlfriend. Just because I have a butch haircut doesn't mean I'm gay. But you still have any left?"

"Sorry, he took the last batch," the caterer said, pointing to Troy, who was sitting alone.

Josie turned around and proceeded to walk to Troy.

"So, since when did we get a new caterer," Josie asked, reaching for a slice of garlic bread from the small mountain on Troy's plate.

"Just today," Troy replied, tearing off a large chunk of bread. "I heard the other one can't do keep up with this job anymore. Over half of their staff is calling in sick now."

"That really sucks," Josie said, "cause that woman over there." She nodded in the direction of the sour caterer, "is kind of a bitch. Wish Taylor was here. I kinda liked him. You know, nice kid and all. But why is half their staff... Oh Lord." Her face fell when she realized why.

"Green Flu," Troy confirmed.

The pair sat eating in silence before he spoke up again. "How long do you think this will keep on going till filming has to be shut down?"

"Beats me," she said, cramming another forkfull of pasta in her mouth, "they don't seem to be having a problem finding replacements."

That part was true. Within two days of Chelsea and Gary leaving production, two local stunt doubles were brought into fill their parts. And they were obviously able to hire a new catering company after the previous one canceled out.

"Besides, we all know that old cliché, the show must go on," Josie said. "We're already two months into filming. There's no use in quitting now. Say, you know that old Elizabeth Taylor movie _Cleopatra_?"

She should know. Her mother, a diehard Elizabeth Taylor fan, has seen all of her movies multiple times.

"Yeah, my grandma was her personal assistant on that movie," Troy said, "she got really sick and they had to delay filming for months so she could recover. Damn near bankrupted the studio. But as a way of saying, "thank you for putting up with my bullshit," she did give my grandma one of her diamond rings."

"But they still made that movie anyway," Josie replied, ignoring Troy's little anecdote, "despite all that was going on. And they never replaced Elizabeth Taylor with another actress so they could continue filming. They changed where they were going to shoot the movie and waited until she got well. So I'm not going to be surprised if suddenly, everyone got sick and we're still being made to shoot this fucking thing."


	6. It Gets Worse

On the following Monday, Josie arrived to work in a good mood. On Saturday, for his birthday, Troy took Josie, Hank, and four other stunt doubles out for a zip lining excursion. Because there were no zip line locations anywhere in Western Australia, she had never gone and had been looking forward to the trip for over a week. And she found her first time to be one of the most exhilarating things she had ever done. There was nothing else in the world that can top sailing in midair through a dense forest.

"Oh, man, Keirsten you should have been there," Josie said as she walked into the make up trailer the next morning. "Zip lining is the coolest thing ever. And Hank was screaming like a little girl when we did the 'Plunge of Doom'. I think Troy got it on his mobile and is planning on using it for blackmail. Don't blame him, considering what Hank did to him during the tequila incident."

She stopped and looked around the empty trailer. "Keirsten? Oh, shit, you better not be coming down with the Green Flu. I already walked in on someone who might have had it and I don't wanna do that again."

"Sorry, what was that," Keirsten snapped as she stomped out of a back room, wiping her hands on a paper towel. Josie sat down on one of the make up chairs. The other actors, stunt doubles, and extras were now filing into the trailer and assuming their places at the make up stations. Three other make up artists walked in and began working at a fast pace.

Normally there would be nine other make up artists.

"Where's everyone else," Josie asked. Keirsten began opening up a bottle of foundation and dabbing it on her face with a sponge.

"Sick," Keirsten spat out as if it the words were made of some disgusting food stuffs. "Yvonne. Mels. Jessica. Stephanie. And Roberto. All called in sick so me and Chloe and Glenn and Geoff are all stuck dealing with a fuckton of you guys till we can get replacements. Who won't come in until Friday! Can you believe that?"

"Hey you missed someone," Hank said, "what happened to Serena?"

"How the fuck should I know," Keirsten snapped. Josie flinched as Keirsten nearly jabbed her in the eye with an eye brush. "That bitch never shows up to work on time! So she could have just skipped work today and be in Cancun for all I know! She actually did that once. We were working on this Confederate vampire movie last year and she's gone for a week. Not a big deal, right? Not a lot of cast members to deal with, right? Vampire make up isn't as complex, right? Wrong!"

"Jesus Christ," Josie exclaimed when Keirsten smacked her in the face with a powder puff. Keirsten ignored her and continued with her rant.

"She vanishes just as they were shooting this big old battle scene. Which requires over two freaking vampires! And guess who got stuck with her workload in addition to her own? And if you don't see that as a big deal, try getting eight vampires camera ready in an hour! And a week later, we find out Serena was in God damn fucking Miami!"

"She got fired though, right," Hank asked.

"Well, duh," Keirsten snapped, continuing her work. "But not blacklisted. I still don't get how she can get work. My cousin just got out of cosmetology school and she still can't get a job!"

"What are you trying to do, give me a black eye," Josie shouted when she realized Keirsten was holding the powder puff over her eye.

Chloe, noticing Josie's distress, immediately rushed over and took the puff out of Keirsten's hand. "I should take over this, you go outside and calm down, alright," she said in a low and comforting voice.  
"Yeah, I'll do that," Keirsten said before stomping out of the trailer.

"I'm really sorry about that," Chloe apologized as she turned to Josie, starting where she left off. "We only just found out about the others getting sick last night. And we haven't been able to reach Serena."

"Look, it's not your fault," Josie said, closing her eyes as Chloe tried to fix up her face to the best of her ability. It was clear that Chloe was a novice in her line of work, but she said nothing.

In ten minutes, Josie was walking on to the sound stage, still somewhat traumatized by what she had to endure in the make up trailer. Like every other day, the sound stage filled with camera men and lighting technicians readying their equipment for a days work while the director, two producers, and the screen writer huddled together in a video monitoring station set up within feet of the stage. Workmen were scrambling to put the finishing touches to the control room while actors sat seated in canvas chairs going over their scripts for one last time before the cameras began rolling. But Josie didn't notice that.

It was the sound of crying that brought her attention. She whipped her head around to see one of the camera men sobbing uncontrollably into his friend's shoulder. For a moment, she paused and wondered if she should ask what has happened and maybe even offer some sympathy. And then the tossed that idea aside. Whatever was bothering that man, she had no business sticking her nose in it. Instead, she walked over to where a small coffee station had been up. Someone had brought a small, portable television from home, set it up on a card table, and tuned it to a local news station.

As Josie poured herself a cup of decaf, she idly listened to the news broadcast as a pair of gaffers, a man and a woman she vaguely knew as being married couple from Encino, California, chatted.

"CEDA has now issued a statement saying that the Green Flu is traveling west," the local anchor said, "cases of patients infected with the disease are now being reported in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. All local authorities are urging residents to follow the proper health guidelines to prevent the disease and to report any infected individuals to-"

"Speaking of infected, did you hear what happened to Harris," the woman said.

"What happened, sweetheart," her husband asked.

"It's his son. Harris got a call last night saying that his son caught the Green Flu and is now being quarantined in Pennsylvania."

"Shit, that's- how many people working on this movie affected by the Green Flu now," the husband asked.

"Gary, maybe Chelsea, five make up artists, and now Harris," the wife reported. "But I hear that Tobin Swan's assistant's grandmother just died from that disease. And that catering company is reporting a bunch of sick employees."

"So that puts the total to over twenty-eight people," the husband said.

"I'm telling you, Alan, I don't know how long we can keep up with production when we have people getting sick or who have to leave because of sick family members," the wife said. "Sooner or later, we're going to have to halt production. There is no way we can work with a dwindling crew."

The pair left the station, continuing to chat. Josie counted down the several weeks she has been in the United States. One week to travel here. Nine weeks spent filming. If her calculations were correct, today marked the tenth week of filming.

"Just a fortnight to go and then I can go home," Josie thought, smiling. "Lockdown" can hold up for two more weeks before filming wrapped up. It's not that long a time and most of the major scenes have already been shot. Still, she thought as she sipped the coffee, it felt so weird that over two months ago, she was back in Perth, sharing that awful coffee at Charlie's house and dreading that going away party their mother and Ellie were hosting.

"I wonder what everyone is up to at this moment," she mused. Mum and Dad are probably having dinner and Mum's chastising Dad for grading maths exams at the table. Wouldn't be surprised if Ellie, David, and Sadie came over then. They've been doing that a lot lately ever since they began remodeling their kitchen five months ago. Charlie would be at a pub or at his place placing video games and smoking kush with his housemates. And Cecelia...

It hurt Josie to think that her friend would be panicking over her friend's safety. But she tossed that thought aside. No. Cecelia wouldn't spend the entire time worrying. Cecelia was a girl who lived in the moment. This is the girl who is infamous for eating her desserts before dinner, jetting off to Bali for a week on short notice with a guy she met at the Lagoon, and throwing down a thousand dollars for shoes just because "she liked them." She has other friends. She's probably off clubbing with Lily, Kym, and Marina, her coworkers at the Carousel Boutique. Or out on a date.

"Yeah", Josie whispered. "That's what Cecelia's doing. She's on a date. But with who?"

Josie took an empty seat next to Alison. For some reason, she always liked the idea of Cecelia and Baz the bartender at the Lagoon being together. They're both fun-loving people and they're close in age, twenty-four and twenty-six respectively. And they always got along well, enough for Baz to slip her free drinks on occasion.

"Hey, Josie. You ok?"

Josie snapped out for a moment to find Alison in her face. "Sorry, I was kinda out of it. Just thinking about how I'm going home in two weeks."

"Don't blame you," Alison said, sitting back in her chair. "Atlanta's a great city, but it'll be nice go to back to L.A and seeing my boyfriend and my dogs again. I showed you a picture of them, didn't I?"

"I think you did," Josie said. "Those two rescue dogs..."

"Halley and Beans," she replied with a smile. "And Chris, my boyfriend. He's been great to my dogs. I never asked though, do have a boyfriend?"

Josie shook her head. "Not since I was in the police academy. My friend Cecelia's tried setting me up on a couple of dates, but they never end well. I guess I'm just not interested in the idea of a boyfriend. Or I haven't found the right guy. Either way, it's hard to date with my work schedule."

"I see what you mean," Alison said, "I've been through so many relationships that ended because I was so busy. But Chris, I think he's the One for me. He's patient with my work schedule and he's always there waiting for me when I get back. And he never complains, which is great 'cause I've been with a couple of prima donnas. And that's on the list of stuff I never, ever want to do again."

Josie smiled. It was so weird hearing the actress who once played the independent Deja of Mars on _Space Aces_ talking about her relationships, especially after she confirmed that Deja was not the type to have a long-term boyfriend. No, wait, Josie thought, it's not weird. It's just Alison Kaiser the actress talking about her boyfriend. That's not weird. That's normal. Now if it was an episode of _Space Aces _where it's the feminist-role model Deja talking about her love for Euin, that would be weird. Alison and Deja were just two separate people with their own lives.

Suddenly, a scream broke out on the set. Josie, Alison, and every person on the sound stage ranging from the director to the intern whose job it was to fetch the producers' coffee, turned their heads to see where the scream was coming from. The woman Josie had seen chatting with her husband by the coffee station earlier was running from the bathroom, screaming for someone to call 911. There was blood and other fluids staining her t-shirt and jeans. She was grabbing her forearm with her other hands.

She ran to the video monitoring station, where the director remained seated, and said, "Mr. Hendricks. You gotta get a medic here now. Ms. Lowry, one of the producers, I found her passed out in the bathroom. She's not responding. And for the love of Pete, someone call a fucking ambulance!"

"I already called, they're on their way," an assistant director called out as he held cradled his expensive mobile phone against his jaw.

"Alright, I'm going to go check on Melissa," Hendricks said. He turned to face the cast and crew, who were staring at him, unsure of what to do. "Everyone stay where you are. Do not go anywhere near the bathrooms until I give the ok."

He left the station, followed by two of the producers.

Alison turned to Josie. "You don't think it's the Green Flu, is it," she asked worriedly. "That would be awful if it struck here."

"Obviously," Josie replied, her eyes trained on the bathroom door on the opposite end of the vast stage.

Production was now on the standstill as everyone remained rooted where they were, hesitant to go near the bathroom. No one said it aloud, but secretly everyone was afraid that Melissa Lowry was coming down with the Green Flu. And if it were the case, then any one of them could be exposed to the disease.

Within minutes, paramedics were rushing through the stage, bearing a gurney and carrying heavy medical equipment to where Hendricks, Lowry, and the others were. Ten minutes later, they were bringing the stretcher out of the bathroom, with the limp form of Melissa Lowry laying on top. Her face was grey and there was vomit and blood coating her mouth, jaw, and the front of an expensive-looking silk blouse. The female gaffer followed behind her as she was escorted by another paramedic. When her husband saw that she was being taken into another ambulance, he shouted, "where are you taking her?"

"It's alright, Alan," Hendricks said, "they're just taking your wife to the hospital. The paramedics think she might be exposed to the..."

He whispered something into Alan's ear. This only caused Alan to run after his wife and the paramedic. "Then let me go with her. Shari and me, we're always together. I can't let my wife be tested alone. She needs me!"

Hendricks approached another paramedic and spoke to him. Within minutes, he turned to Alan and said, "alright, you're free to go with Shari. But if the worst should happen, be aware that neither of you will be allowed to return to the set. Do you understand?"

Alan nodded solemnly. "Thank you," he said before running after his wife and climbing into the back of the ambulance containing her.

Soon, with the alarms on and blaring loudly, the ambulances took off, leaving behind a studio filled with shocked onlookers. Everyone stood still and silent for several minutes before someone said, "it's the Green Flu, isn't it?"

"We don't know that, Lowry could have just had a seizure," a set designer said. "You know, like epilepsy."

"Dude, my daughter has epilepsy and she never looked like that after a seizure," Hank said.

The colour once again drained from Josie's face as her mind raced back to that Monday morning when she found Chelsea lying unconscious on the bathroom floor. The fainting. The vomiting. The graying skin. The urgency to get an ambulance. The inability to return to work. This was becoming all too familiar scene.

"It's the Green Flu, isn't it," Alison whispered.

"I have no idea," Josie said. And it was true. She didn't know. But another part of her was sure it was the Green Flu. She never did find out what was wrong with Chelsea though she shared the symptoms with Melissa Lowry. All she knew was that she had gotten sick and was now being quarantined at the CDC headquarters on the other side of the city. "Excuse me for a minute."

She spotted Jordan on the other end of the sound stage, talking to Troy. She took off running towards them. Once she reached her destination, she stopped, looked Jordan in the eye, and said, "we need to talk. Outside."

Jordan and Josie departed the sound stage and went out. Life outside of the studio had resumed as usual. Everyone was back at work on their respective projects.

"Josie, what's this all about," Jordan said.

"Chelsea," she began. "What exactly is wrong with her?"

Jordan stood with a confused look on her face. "Wait? What?"

"Chel-sea," Josie repeated, "you know, that sick girl I had to share a room with? What's wrong with her?"

Jordan's confused expression melted away into worry. "Oh, her," he said. He broke off eye contact and stared down at his feet. Josie stepped closer and tried to look him in the eye. "Jo, I didn't want to tell anyone this, because it will lead to a panic on set."

"But there's rumors over what's happening," Josie whispered harshly, "people are getting sick left and right and we're being made to shoot this. Jordan, look at me! What was wrong with Chelsea? I have to know. I shared a room with that girl and she might have exposed me to whatever she has."

"What's there to worry," Jordan asked. He stepped back and took a long good look at Josie. "You're not sick. You don't have any of the symptoms Chelsea had."

"Tell me anyway or I'll make you," Josie snapped. She had now grabbed Jordan by his shirt front and was bringing his face close to hers. She was surprised how light he was. He was a short guy, about 5'4" or 5'5", but had to weigh as much as 120 lb. His feet were now dangling inches from the pavement.

"Fine, but don't hurt me," Jordan squeaked. She could see the fear in his eyes, a sight she was familiar with. Back in primary school, Josie had earned a reputation as the class bully after clobbering three older boys who made fun of her for her stammer. Every kid she had ever beaten up, taken their lunch money from, stuffed into lockers and trash cans, all of them had that same look as they begged for mercy.

It felt so strange to be looking into those fearful eyes again after so many years.

Josie put Jordan back on the ground. Once he gained his bearing, he whispered, "Chelsea got diagnosed with the Green Flu. The last I heard about her, the CDC had her put under quarantine at their headquarters. I don't know how she is doing though. She could be dead for all we know."

They started walking back to the set. As they parted, Jordan pulled her aside for a moment and said, "if I were you, Josie, I wouldn't be too concerned about being infected. The doctor who examined Chelsea said that you can only get the Green Flu from bites or from coming into contact with bodily fluids. So you should be safe."

* * *

A/N: Another chapter, another report of people falling to the Green Flu.

There isn't much to say for this chapter since I personally am not one for doing authors notes. I will say thank you to InlovewithNicholas for reviewing, since I appreciate them so much.

And also that writing Keirsten's rant was a lot of fun.


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